


Arachnophobia

by monaboyd_archivist



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-18
Updated: 2004-04-18
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:58:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4438127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monaboyd_archivist/pseuds/monaboyd_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viggo has an irrational fear of spiders.  (Dom/Viggo)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Arachnophobia

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Shirasade: this story was originally archived at the Monaboyd.net Archive, which was closed in September 2014 due to software issues and a lack of new submissions for several years . To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in October 2014. I e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this author, please contact me using the e-mail address on the Monaboyd.net Archive collection profile.

You have an irrational fear of spiders, but you smile anyway when he brings out his eight-legged friends. You wonder if there is such a thing as a rational fear, as you stare at the spindly brown thing creeping up your abdomen, legs whisper-soft tickles through the fabric of your T-shirt. The fear is an excited tremble in your stomach, a feeling not unlike love: it makes you sick and heady all at once.

You face your fear for him, not out of a sense of pride, but a sense of sacrifice, because you can sense his excitement. You don’t want to ruin that, don’t want to see his face drop and his eagerness crumble, don’t want to crush that indefinable youthful quality he has. You wish that you could capture his joy with a photograph or a pencil or paints, but it is elusive, like the sunlight, and no matter how many times you try, you can’t get it quite right. He asks you sometimes, why you do it – there are pages of your sketchbook filled with his squashed nose and crooked jaw and stubbled eyelashes – and you try to explain in words he’ll understand.

Unfortunately, you don’t quite understand yourself. You know that you like the asymmetry of his face and the size of his ears. You obsess over the tiny details: the crinkles in the corners of his eyes, the fine bridge of hairs between his brows, the tiny dip in his chin. You want to explain this fascination, but you can’t – just like you can’t explain why you don’t care to draw Orlando, who has perfectly symmetrical features and a rather normal dislike of bugs.

You still breathe easier when show-and-tell is over and Dom locks his pets back in their glass prisons. He coos to them the same way that you coo to your horses, and when they’re behind the glass you can almost understand his love for them. As an artist, you can appreciate the precise lines of their bodies, and the particular grace with which they move, but as a man you cannot shake your more primal fear.

Then he’s looking at you with bright eyes and an eager smile, and you forget how to breathe again. It feels like there are spiders crawling on your insides, little legs trip-crawling in your stomach, and it makes you sick and heady all at once.

Maybe scared and in love are just different words for the same feeling.


End file.
